Premium
The effects of task type and task requirements on the dissociation of skin conductance responses and secondary task probe reaction time
Author(s) -
Sidle David A. T.,
Lipp Ottmar V.,
Dall Patricia J.
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
psychophysiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.661
H-Index - 156
eISSN - 1469-8986
pISSN - 0048-5772
DOI - 10.1111/j.1469-8986.1996.tb02110.x
Subject(s) - psychology , stimulus (psychology) , skin conductance , audiology , dissociation (chemistry) , auditory stimuli , cognitive psychology , communication , developmental psychology , neuroscience , perception , chemistry , medicine , biomedical engineering
Although task‐irrelevant events elicit smaller skin conductance responses (SCRs) than do task‐relevant events, secondary task probe reaction time (RT) is often slower during the former. Three experiments (N = 48 in each) examined the effects of task demands, instructions, and stimulus discriminability on this dissociation effect. SCRs were larger to task‐relevant stimuli in all experiments regardless of experimental manipulation. Subjects in Experiment I counted either all tones of one pitch (high/low group) or longer‐than‐usual tones of one pitch (longer group). There was more RT slowing during task‐irrelevant tones at a 250‐ms probe position in the high/low group and at a 150‐ms probe position in the longer group. Experiment 2 employed differential Pavlovian conditioning in which the offset of task‐relevant stimuli (CS+) coincided with the onset of a shock stimulus. Half the subjects were told which stimulus would be followed by shock (information group), whereas the others received no information (no‐information group). Increased RT slowing during CS− was restricted to the no‐information group. Experiment 3 employed visual conditioned stimuli that were easy or difficult to discriminate. RT slowing at 4,000 ms was greater during CS+, whereas there was a tendency for more RT slowing during CS− at 150 ms. There was no effect for CS discriminability. The results suggest that during both simple discrimination and during Pavlovian conditioning, task‐irrelevant stimuli are more actively processed than task‐relevant stimuli within the first 250 ms of stimulus presentation.